9 September 1852
“A Family Muss,” by “W. Epaminondas Adrastus Perkins,” is the earliest substantial piece of writing in Orion's Hannibal Journal which can be confidently attributed to Clemens. One week after its publication the young subeditor altered “Perkins” to “Blab” and, with his brother safely distant in St. Louis, filled several columns of the Journal with his creative efforts. “A Family Muss” is altogether more modest than those later sketches by Blab. Its routine subject called for no more than a local item of a few lines, but the young reporter dressed up his information in the garb of a narrative and festooned it with comic Irish dialect. Thus “A Family Muss” affords a preview—as do “The Dandy” (no. 2) and “Hannibal, Missouri” (no. 3) in their different ways—of the fictionalizing that the journalist Clemens would often practice in Nevada and California.
On the side of “Holliday's Hill”Ⓔexplanatory note there is a small house, occupied by an indefinite number of very large families, chiefly composed of Dutch, Irish, Scotch, Americans, English, &c. The paternal head of one of these families took it into his head on Tuesday, to take holyday, and with this laudable intention, he left his work at an early hour in the day, and depositing a large “brick” carefully in his hatⒺexplanatory note, he cleared for his “highland home.” After arriving without damage at his journey's end, the idea struck him that he was very much in want of exercise; and that the said house full of humanity, was in the same fix, so, procuring himself a good stout cudgel, he commenced thumping the heads of his astounded neighbors promiscuously; and the way the gentleman made the “furriners” fly around was decidedly amusing. After diverting himself in this manner until he felt that his health was greatly improved, and also feeling somewhat fatigued from his patriotic exertions, he came down in town to rest himself.
When he thought his limbs sufficiently recruited, he laid in another “brick,” and about supper time, returned to the scene of his labors. This time, he commenced on his wife, and after administering to her a sound beating, he took his stick and leveled a fellow lodger, and while waiting for the fallen gentleman to regain his perpendicular, he was amusing himself by tapping over the women and children, when Marshal HawkinsⒺexplanatory note “grabbed”Ⓐemendationthe unlucky offender, and marched him off to the Calaboose, and one of his female victims, groaning under the effects of his harsh discipline Ⓐemendation, expressed it as her wish that— Ⓐemendation
[begin page 71]“If yees iver git 'im thar, I hope ye'll hould 'im tight. Och! he's the dreadfulest man I iver see. Oh, me, I'se scairt to death, I is, an' I'll niver git over it in the worl'. Och'! the bloody divil!”—
We managed to hear Ⓐemendation that much above the din that assailed our ears on every side. We then decamped. The above is a “striking” example of what a man can do, when he's “half seas over.”
Yours,
W. Epaminondas Adrastus Perkins.
The first printing appeared in the Hannibal Journal for 9 September 1852 (p. 2). The only known copy of this printing, in MoHist, is copy-text. Clemens may have typeset and proofread the sketch, since he was on the paper's staff. There are no textual notes.